Mary allowed her niece to spend the entirety of the weekend hiding under her covers but come Monday, she put her foot down.

"You're not wasting the privilege of an education over some boy," Mary insisted, pulling the sheets away that morning and forcing Tuesday to get out of bed. To prolong the coming school day as long as possible and also avoid an inevitable internal monologue, Tuesday checked her phone for the first time in days to see half a dozen notifications from Jordan and even a handful from her other friends. Each one grew increasingly concerned in tone as more time passed without a response.

Tuesday sighed and stowed the phone out of sight again. She'd see them at school, and then they'd see she was okay--well, alive--and hopefully stop worrying. Of course it wasn't that simple. At lunch Jordan tracked her down in the library where Tuesday had hidden behind the stacks, nose buried deep in a book she wasn't truly reading. Each time she finished scanning a page, she couldn't remember what she'd just read and would have to start again.

Staying silent at first, Jordan settled in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs opposite from her. Tuesday didn't look up, focusing so hard on the page in front of her that the lines began to blur. She blinked and realized tears had started prick at her eyes; she rubbed at them hard enough to make her face sore.

"If you don't wanna talk, that's cool," Jordan finally said. "But at least tell me I don't need to worry about you."

Tuesday forced herself to meet her eyes but immediately had to look away again, wilting under the intensity in the other girl's stare.

"It's okay to be sad, but...if you're sad enough to do something stupid, please be real with me here."

Tuesday looked up again, not expecting the conversation to veer in that direction. She opened and shut her mouth, debating on a response before finally saying, "It's not like that."

"Then what is it like?"

"I'm just disappointed, I guess," Tuesday said softly, setting the book aside and wrapping her arms around herself. "You think you know somebody...No, that isn't right. I've always known what he is but I also thought he could be more than that."

"You mean that friend of yours," Jordan clarified just above a whisper. Tuesday nodded, counting the lines in the wooden table just to be a little less aware of the hole expanding in her chest.

Every time she let Cyrus in, he blasted her apart.

And now here she was, blabbing about her stupid problems to someone who didn't even know the full extent of the story, the sins she herself was guilty of. Face heating up, Tuesday pushed back from the table and slowly walked out of the library, Jordan in tow.

"Some people just don't get it," Jordan was saying. "They genuinely don't see when they're fucking up, but that isn't on you."

A part of Tuesday was beyond grateful for her support, but a bigger part of her just wanted to be alone. Whatever the other girl said next, she didn't really hear it, and then the bell rang and forced them to part. The rest of the day was a blur, nothing significant enough to crack the careful shield Tuesday had raised between her and the world.

The next day when she didn't get up in the morning, Mary let her stay in bed for a few extra hours. Then, in pajamas and eyes bloodshot--she'd normally be fast asleep by now--Mary came in and perched on the end of Tuesday's bed.

"Damn them," Mary muttered. "That boy's energy was just too much, I never should have let him back in."

Tuesday mumbled into her pillow, "That's not the problem."

After a pause, Mary responded with a hint of nostalgia in her voice. "I know. Wouldn't it be so much easier if it were, though?" She patted Tuesday's back and added, "Burying yourself in these emotions will do you no favors. You need to be surrounded by good energy and things that are familiar--it's time to go to school."

Tuesday glanced at her phone and cursed under her breath. She'd been hoping more of the day had passed, it certainly had felt like it had, but it was nearly an hour before noon. Grudgingly she obeyed her aunt and got ready for school, movements mechanical as she brushed her teeth and clothed herself. It was easier to throw a hoodie on over yesterday's clothes than putting on a new shirt, and that's what she did.

When she got to school, lunch was in session. She braved the cafeteria this time, craving the feeling she got around Jordan that made everything feel just a little easier to handle, but her spot at their usual table was empty.

Chris and Layla looked up with wide eyes as she approached them. They greeted her with surprise in their voices.

"Where's Jordan?" Tuesday said after clearing her throat and sitting down across from them.

Layla glanced at Chris with the hint of a smirk playing on her lips. "We kinda thought she was with you, y'know, ditching class."

Tuesday blinked, toying with the apple in her hands she had no intention of eating. "Why would you think that?"

"Well, neither of you ever miss school, and..." Layla trailed off with a shrug.

Tuesday grimaced down at her shoes, trying to tamp down the feeling that something must be wrong. It was ridiculous. If she could miss some school, so could anyone else.

The real red flag was when Jordan didn't answer her text. That wasn't right, not after how she'd lectured Tuesday about going radio silent.

The rest of the day, it was hard to breathe with the constant tightness in her chest and how her heart seemed hellbent on breaking free, knocking insistently upon her ribcage. Halfway through her walk home, her phone began to buzz; Tuesday answered it on the first ring, breathless.

"Jordan?"

A voice she didn't recognize, a much older woman, spoke on the other end. "No, this is her mother. Tuesday?"

Words failing her, Tuesday nodded, and it took several seconds for her to realize that hadn't been a visible answer. "I--yes."

The voice was hoarse and thick with tears. "Jordan's been asking for you but for the most part the painkillers have limited her lucid moments--"

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

"What?"

There was a pause and a sniffle. "She's been--attacked." After another pause, the woman listed off the hospital and room number they could be found in and disconnected after a hurried goodbye.

Her first thoughts went to Cyrus. The pain that ensued from accusing him, doubting him, well somehow that stung worse than when he'd said his last words to her. It didn't make sense how protective she was of him--especially now. Still, something told her he wasn't capable of this as she rushed to catch a train to cut her trip in half. He'd been trying to turn things around. He snapped and had said something terrible, something unforgivable...but that didn't mean he had done this.

Then Tuesday remembered the look on his face when she accused him of being jealous and began to rethink her loyalties.

She might've appeared drunk to all the people she crashed into, stumbling in a daze on shaky legs, as she rose from the subway and jogged to the hospital. It was surreal entering the place; she'd never been in one, never had a reason to. Now the one person she wanted to see was there but it was the last place on earth Tuesday wanted her to be.

Everything was bathed in white—the blinding strips of fluorescent lights overhead, the plain walls and unscuffed tile, doctor's coats and a bed being wheeled by with an equally pale patient half hidden beneath a sheet. All of it made Tuesday's blossoming headache even more pronounced and the strong smell of antiseptic did nothing to help matters. For a place where people were living the best and worst moments of their lives, it came off physically as a rather emotionless institution. She hurried past rooms from which screams and cries reverberated out from, the sounds sticking in her head and echoing there long after she found the pediatric wing. She didn't know if there was truly a labyrinthine design at work or if her mind was so muddled from stress that it wasn't working properly, but it took several minutes of searching to find the correct room.

She tried once more in vain to take a deep, steady breath and rapped lightly on the shut door.

After a moment in which Tuesday was ready to break it down herself, the door finally slid open. A woman with reddened eyes, tears flowing freely down her face, peered back at her. Behind her, a man with salt-and-pepper hair sticking up in tufts--like he'd been tugging on it anxiously--was standing, shoulders bent with grief.

"We'll just--" the woman said, a sob interrupting the words, "--give you two a minute." Jordan's parents edged out into the hall, not venturing far from the room.

Swallowing the bile that was straining to come up, Tuesday skirted past them and lightly shut the door before allowing herself to look up. She didn't know how she'd react, didn't know what she'd see, and didn't want those people to watch.

Jordan, pale as the sheet covering her except for a reddish bruise forming just under one eye, was lying still as a corpse in the hospital bed. Tuesday choked on tears, unable to shake her worries even as the nearby monitor showed a steady pulse. She crept closer, taking tiny steps, and Jordan's eyes fluttered open, squinting against the light streaming in the window.

It took a moment for them to focus on Tuesday, and she couldn't read whatever emotions were in them. She took a seat on the edge of the bed, finding Jordan's hand under the sheet and grasping it in her own. There was a faint trace of blood crusted under the nails.

"What--happened?"

Jordan's eyes shut again. After a moment, she wordlessly peeled the sheet away from her body, revealing a ratty old hospital gown. With shaking fingers, she moved the fabric aside to uncover her abdomen.

It took all the self-control in Tuesday's body to keep her from launching back off the bed. The other girl's once fair skin was covered in dozens of jagged lacerations, inflamed and held together by internal stitches. She had to quickly look away, covering her mouth and hoping she didn't throw up right there, before forcing herself to turn back. It took several moments for Tuesday to make sense of the markings, to notice they weren't random, senseless scratchings.

Some kind of thin blade had carved the words TODAY WILL KNOW WHY deep into Jordan's skin, each word having its own line, taking up the entirety of her midriff.

In a shaky, slow voice, she said, "A man broke into my house early this morning." Jordan's eyes strayed to the ceiling as she fumbled to cover herself again.

Tuesday couldn't respond. Every part of her had frozen solid, making her defenseless against the coming dread.

"I didn't understand it at first," Jordan continued, eyes tracing back down to her now-hidden wounds. "But you know what today is?"

When Tuesday could breathe again, it came in as an antiseptic-scented gasp. She looked away from Jordan's searching, pensive stare. She couldn't get her mind under control, couldn't keep up, couldn't make sense of what was right in front of her.

"It's got to be a stupid coincidence, right? Tell me it's a coincidence," Jordan said, and it almost sounded as if she were begging.

When Tuesday did not respond, Jordan's voice flattened.

"He held me down and cut those words into me," she narrated with no emotion, "and recited a list of names. He wouldn't leave until he was sure I memorized them."

She began to list them off then, and to Tuesday's increasing horror, she recognized every single one. Faces to go with the names wavered in her mind's eye, pictures they'd sent and the foul chatlogs and the terror in their eyes when they realized they'd been tricked.

"Stop," Tuesday begged, tears falling down her own face, causing her to sputter and choke on them.

Jordan did not stop, not until reaching the end of the list. Staring hard at the opposite wall, she said, "Those men apparently all disappeared over the last few months. But," she added, finally looking back to Tuesday and the tears flowing freely now, "you somehow knew that already, didn't you?"

"I really don't know what happened here," Tuesday tried to insist, but her breathing was ragged and her chest ached and she couldn't slow down enough to speak properly.

Voice now a whisper, Jordan said, "I don't want to know whatever it is you're involved in, and I won't tell anyone as long as you leave me alone."

"You're not--you don't mean that," Tuesday protested, beginning to hyperventilate. The room tilted and spun.

"I never want to see you again," Jordan responded flatly. When Tuesday made no move to leave, Jordan's voice rose in a grating shout. "Did you hear me? Get out!"

Having enough self-awareness to realize history had a sick way of repeating itself, Tuesday stumbled out of the room and hurried past Jordan's parents before they could berate her for upsetting their daughter. Outside, she fell to her knees in the snow, ignoring the looks passersby shot her.

They didn't matter. She was all alone in the world.

She felt so shaky, so unhinged, that gravity could have malfunctioned and untethered her from the ground, casting her off somewhere far into the atmosphere where she'd never hurt anyone again. Because it was becoming blindingly clear she hurt everyone she cared about, even if it wasn't her wielding the knife. Trouble followed her like a stray mutt, and the only way to stop a feral dog was to put it down.

Not thinking about her actions, Tuesday pulled out her phone and scrolled through the call log down to the number she'd never entered into her contacts. Her tears fell and splattered onto the screen, and she had to stop several times to wipe it dry.

The phone went to voicemail after several rings, some generic recording directing her to leave a message. She hung up and dialed again, and again, until it finally went through.

"What in the hell do you want?"

"Where is he?" Tuesday said back, not recognizing her own voice. Her vision was still wavering in and out and she fell back into a sitting position, not minding as the snow seeped into her clothes and melted there.

"You seem to have forgotten your manners," Raziel responded, ignoring the question, Before he could continue, a wave of anger jolted through her.

"He hurt my friend," Tuesday hissed. "So either tell me where the fuck you're hiding him or I'll--"

"I am, uh, not totally sure what you're getting at, but I suggest laying off the drugs. The kid's been with me for days."

Tuesday shook her head, hitting the side of it with one hand repeatedly until she could get her thoughts in order. "No, no, you're wrong, and if you don't help me I'll tear the city apart until I find him--"

"Oh, for fuck's sake."

The call cut off and Tuesday stared blankly at her phone, debating what to do.

She didn't have to ponder that for long. Just a minute later, the crowd on the nearby sidewalk parted for a man who was roughly pushing past them, narrowed eyes trained on Tuesday. He'd never hurt her before--he'd saved her life, even--but something in his expression warned he was on the moral edge, close to

"How--how did you--" her brain seemed to be working exceptionally slowly, because of course she knew how he'd gotten there so fast. She'd seen him disappear into thin air before. She shook her head like it would dispel the slowness then glared up at the demon. "We need to talk."